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Parson, who moved from Toronto to Vancouver a year ago in search of a more balanced life, received the request for more information about her 2015 income tax return earlier this month.

In the letter, CRA says it is reviewing the $11,327 eligible-dependant credit she claimed for her daughter, Viva.

Formerly known as the “equivalent-to-spouse credit,” it is worth about $2,200 in a refund or reduction in taxes. The credit is also linked to federal and provincial child benefits worth as much as $7,700 a year per child.

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In a case of what appears to be bureaucracy run amok, the CRA letter says Parson must provide proof she has custody of her daughter and show that she “maintained a self-contained domestic establishment in which you lived with and supported the eligible dependant being claimed.”

When she called CRA for an explanation, Parson said she was told to provide a copy of her daughter’s birth certificate and social insurance number along with her husband’s death certificate. She was also told she needed a letter from “someone in authority like a doctor, teacher or clergy person,” to vouch that she was parenting her daughter by herself in her own home last year.

Parson, who had submitted her late husband Joel Urnom’s death certificate, his will and their marriage licence to CRA when she filed the couple’s 2014 taxes, was shocked.

“I don’t know why they are asking me to provide these documents again, especially when they sent Joel’s 2014 tax rebate to me and have been sending me CPP survivor and orphan’s benefits,” she said.

Information in Parson’s online CRA account, which she provided to the Star, clearly identifies her as a widow who has sole custody of Viva.

“I was actually crying when I was talking to (the CRA agent),” Parson recalls. “I said you have the death certificate and the marriage certificate, why do I need to prove this year after year? Pulling all of this out again just brings it all back.”

But the CRA agent was unapologetic. “She said there is nothing that proves you have been taking care of (your child) by yourself. How do we know that you haven’t moved in with someone else who is now taking care of you? How do we know that Children’s Services hasn’t taken your child away from you,” Parson added.

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“I just thought, wow. Really?”

Accountant Gord Douglas of Liberty Tax Services, who prepared Parson’s 2015 taxes, said that as more people file their taxes online, CRA has stepped up reassessments of taxpayers who claiming credits for eligible dependants, tuition, moving and business expenses in the last three or four years.

But this is the first case he has seen where CRA is questioning the eligible-dependant credit for someone whose spouse has died.

“Canada Revenue will fire off that letter, regardless of the circumstances. It’s automatic,” he said from his Vancouver franchise office. “So I can pretty much guarantee they never even looked to see if that was the case.”

Douglas says CRA used to check its files before sending out reassessment letters, but now leaves that work up to taxpayers and their accountants. If it continues, companies like his will have to raise their prices, he said. And those who don’t understand the process or who don’t have accountants to help will lose out on credits to which they are entitled.

“I call it tax by administration,” he said.

CRA disputed Douglas’s claim.

“The minister of national revenue is wholeheartedly committed to ensuring that all Canadians get the credits and benefits to which they are entitled and that they are provided with complete, accurate, clear and timely information,” a CRA spokeswoman said in an emailed response.

The agency doesn’t intentionally try to cause taxpayers “emotional hardship” and if a CRA employee made the comments reported by Parson, “it would be considered completely unacceptable,” Zdero said.

However, CRA stands by its review process “to maintain public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the child and family benefits and credits programs,” Zdero said.

The agency is willing to work with any taxpayer who needs more time or is having difficulty obtaining supporting documents, she added.

Parson was “disappointed” with CRA’s response.

“There are so many people who are widowed with young children living this painful, surreal life,” she said. “I would have hoped that CRA could make a change so that other people like me don’t have to go through this again and again.”

Viva was born in the fall of 2012. But shortly after her first birthday — and weeks after Urnom was given a clean bill of health for a life insurance policy — the young father was diagnosed with stage-4 pancreatic cancer. It is one of the most deadly cancers, because there are rarely any symptoms until it has spread to the liver and other organs.

Urnom died in May 2014, just four months after his diagnosis.

Heartbroken, Parson sold the couple’s condo near Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave. the following year and spent four months travelling with her daughter to clear her head.

“I know all too well just how fragile life can be,” she said. “I wanted to spend more time with my daughter and I wanted to find a good place to raise her.”

While visiting friends in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver in July 2015, she fell in love with the lifestyle and decided to put down roots.

“I wanted to raise my daughter in a place with a little less stress, less pollution and more focus on the environment and the outdoors,” she said.

Today Parson is able to spend every morning with her daughter and works in marketing part-time in the afternoon while Viva attends preschool or spends time with her grandmother, who moved to the area from St. Catharines to help out.

“I am very lucky that I have been able to find this kind of balance,” Parson said.

But rent in Vancouver is not cheap and her two-bedroom apartment costs $2,400. Parson supplements her small income with investments from the proceeds of her condo sale and is grateful for her monthly CPP survivor and child benefits of $463 a month and federal and provincial child benefits that amount to about $582 a month.

Late Friday, Parson said the CRA review office manager called her to apologize for the agent who handled her phone call. The manager, also told Parson the only document she needs to send is a letter from anyone who knows her, to vouch that she is caring for Viva by herself.

“He said he would put a note in my file so that I wouldn’t get this letter again next year,” Parson said. “But that doesn’t change things for anyone else. I just don’t think Revenue Canada should be treating widowed parents this way.”

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